


kiss me, my beloved

by geniewish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Horror, Hyungki, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Sirens, halloween month!!, mermaids but make them demon, siren hyungwon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:44:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewish/pseuds/geniewish
Summary: temptation (n.): the act of tempting or the state of being tempted, especially to evil; something that causes a strong urge or desire to have or do something that is bad, wrong, or unwise"kiss me, kihyun," he says every night with a voice as pure as newly bloomed daffodils. and his eyes, his eyes of glimmering obsidians, so dark it was as if they were the water, they were the sacred pool, they were the rainy sky and the everlasting tranquil underneath. underneath the ripples. “kiss me, my beloved.”and every night kihyun escapes the temptation until he can't escape it no more.





	kiss me, my beloved

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic for mx spooky bingo for the 'murky waters' square!! i might have strayed far away from the prompt at some point but i did come back to it. 
> 
> it's kind of not that scary it's more despairing n Dark than scary but i tried,, my best,,,,,
> 
> shout out to alle for making the bingo!! pls join it too
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

Black crooked branches of poisonous trees wrap around him like a dead woman’s bony fingers, mercilessly scratching his face and tangling in his hair. In the absolute darkness of the forest, wooden claws whisper and tremble like living ghosts, brush over his neck, linger on his shoulders, creep under his shirt. Twisted boughs above his head hide the starless sky, paint the crystal moon in ink and secrete his cowering figure under the dead weight of gloomy woods. 

It’s terrifyingly quiet here, save for Kihyun’s stuttering breaths.

Viscous mud gurgles under his feet, grabs him by the ankles and slows his every step, but he pushes through, doesn’t let the respiring ground drag him down. Alone and weary in a ragged white blouse and with glistening skin, it’s what became of him; it’s what he will always be to the woeful woods and starving slugs.

He can’t see a goddamn thing. Not a glimmer of light in sight. 

And yet he knows this path by heart. He could walk it with his eyes closed, he could wrap his fingers around the crumbling branches and let the wailing trees lead him to the edge. A lonely raven could always carry his last confessions to the ears his shuddering words were meant for. They love him, the wandering souls of leafless woods, they love him, and they loathe to see him leave the minute the sun peeks above the wretched horizon. 

Kihyun’s hand comes to hold onto the old prickling bark to keep him stable on his feet, and the wood weeps black viscid resin onto his palm. He wipes it on his trousers. It soaks through and stings his skin like poison, but he keeps going without a single hiss of pain, used to the burns and cysts it leaves. It’ll heal, it always does. 

His throat hurts with every exhale. He has no spit left to swallow, mouth parched and chafe, even his nose aches from the venomous air he insists on breathing in. When he feels solid curling roots under his feet, he knows he is close, and he blinks away shy tears of despair. 

So accustomed to the dark, he doesn’t immediately notice a weak shiver of blue glow in the distance. A smile hides in the corners of his chapped lips when the bent barks make way for him to pass through into the radiant glimmer of the moonlight. Kihyun doesn’t notice the damp sapphire grass under his feet or the sparkling stars above his head when the familiar lustre of water welcomes him with a soft swishing ripple. 

He drops on his knees where the dark stream meets the greening ground, and his tortured and yet pleased exhale escapes his lips in a white puff of fog. Wet grass soothes his wounded palms and knees, light breeze of sweet air cools his back and settles on his lips just sugar powder. 

Kihyun never dares to thirst for the pristine water in the little river. He looks at his rippling reflection, his weary tarnished face, sunken cheeks with smudges of blood and dirt on greyish skin, fretted eyes and trembling lips, and sees himself smile. A sparkle of blissful happiness ignites in his dull irises. Something in his features finds solace in the gently swaying waters underneath. It always does. 

His reflection shakes ever so softly, slithering flesh swims under the shimmering surface, and two pale hands glide up to the shore, glowing mysteriously in the white moonlight. Thin fingers tangle in the wet grass, and Kihyun raises his head with a growing beam. 

Hidden from his chin down, _he_ looks up at him with familiar obsidian eyes, so tender, so very tender. Limpid drops of water slide from his cheeks and his nose like angel’s tears, dolefully and graciously and innocently. And yet there is not a bleak of sorrow on his delicate face, not a frown of distress on his porcelain skin, not a curve of grief on his marble lips. Instead, they part in a phantom smile, two petals that shed words of music Kihyun longed to hear.

“You came again, my dear wanderer,” _he_ whispers, voice quiet like a flutter of the wind, and yet it travels along the little ripples of the water, dances in the laid grass and echoes in looming willows by the other shore. 

“Of course I did, how could I not.” Kihyun feels surges of ephemeral strength crawl up his arms, they calm his throat and bring colour back to his cheeks. 

“You’re weary, my dear Kihyun,” _his_ eyes look over his mudded hands and scraped face, frail wrists raising ever so slightly to gently hover over the water. “Drink, you shall feel better.”

“I am not thirsty, Hyungwon.” Kihyun mutters, voice quiet and hoarse and filled with yearning for the name he’s longed to say. He does not have the heart to even think about quenching his thirst, for all he is craving is brush his tubby fingers through the creature’s raven hair, gather every little drop from his forehead and lips, blow away a crystal bead off his lashes. Hyungwon never frowns at the rejection; he brings his fragile hands to Kihyun’s face and comforts the aching scratches with a cooling touch. Kihyun cannot help but lean into the cold palm on his cheek. “My beloved,” he breathes out, as quiet as a tremble of a leaf, “my dearly beloved.”

Hyungwon’s eyes twinkle in the moonlight, or perhaps they flicker with dainty joy at the cowardly confessions that escape Kihyun’s lips with every breath he takes. “Drink,” he lowers his hands into the stream, folds them and gathers a gulp of water, raises them to Kihyun’s mouth. Fleeing drops fall back into the river with a crystal tinkle, light like a child’s laughter. “Drink, my prince.”

Carefully, as if they were a frail chalice of porcelain, Kihyun brings his hands to Hyungwon’s and lowers his head, dipping his lips into the pleasant cool of water. He sips and swallows, and it washes down his throat like flower liquor, bittersweet and light and cold, soothing the ache. 

“Drink, my very own precious prince,” comes Hyungwon’s whisper again. And Kihyun drinks, and drinks until his body is rid of any pain, of any anguish for the silent moonlight he so strives to see when the sun is high above his head. He wipes his dampen lips with the back of his hand; Hyungwon lowers his back into the water. His lips part in a faint sated smile, and sharp pearls of teeth peek from under the pale plush petals. 

And although Kihyun’s throat is soothed, words do not have the strength to come out. In the enchanted beauty of Hyungwon’s face, he is lost and mute and deaf even to his own breathing. 

The water swishes softly behind the enamouring creature, a rogue scale glimpses over the dark surface and dives back in, and Hyungwon quietly sways forward. Putting his raw-boned elbows on the grass, he lays his precious head on his arms and looks up at Kihyun with mellow glee. Something akin to slumber settles in the luminous obsidians of his eyes.

“Tell me a story, Kihyun,” he asks, benign and quiet, and yet Kihyun can never refuse a single request. 

He lies on his back, head facing Hyungwon. Everlasting drops of water gleam in the delicate lines on his lips and in his fluttering lashes, his raven hair shimmers, long and flowing deep under the wet surface. Something slithers behind him; whetted scales send gentle waves towards the shore. 

“I’ve already told you everything I could. All the places I’ve travelled to, all the battles I’ve fought in, all the monsters I’ve killed.” Kihyun says, and the back of his head, faraway sceneries are painting themselves in bright colours, victorious calls are ringing across his mind, faces are distorting in various emotions behind his eyelids.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anybody,” Hyungwon exhales, and his eyes flutter close.

Kihyun follows the gentle curves of his profile, from his brows to his nose to his ever so plump lips, and wishes he was the moonlight reflecting in the crystal beads on his skin.

“Once upon a time, a prince of a faraway kingdom strayed away from his hunting troop and wandered into the dark marshes at the edge of everblooming forest. For long he roamed around the swamp, trying to find his way back, so long the sun had settled behind the endless horizon. He could not see where he was going, could not distinguish between the low-lying morass and towering trees. His horse, his loyal valiant horse, was trapped in the viscous mud and couldn’t get out. The prince cried as he tried to pull his faithful friend back to the ground, but with every rough movement he made, the horse drowned further in the swamp, until all that was of him was a sound of the mud gurgling in satisfaction. Vision blurred from reckless tears, the prince stumbled along the cackling marshes. He lost his shoes, his lost his cloak, he lost his everything, he was alone in the middle of the dreadful night, surrounded by ghosts and creatures of the marshlands. Despaired, he didn’t notice the fresh dampen grass under his scraped feet, didn’t notice the settling tranquil and the friendly moonlight illuminating his path. When he came to from his silent wailing, there was peaceful, bewitching water reaching for his toes. And over the water, a face of an ephemeral creature smiled up at him, so… beautiful and… ethereal. In a blink, all anguish and ache was lifted off the prince’s chest. He felt like he could breathe again.”

Kihyun stops. Gentle ripples of the water still calmly wash over the grassy shores. 

Hyungwon’s rubs his cheek on his arms, a curl of a smile lingering in the corners of his lips. “And what happened then?”

“Then?” Kihyun doesn’t dare tear his eyes away from the moonlit face of the creature, follows every little drop that slides down his cheeks, imagines the comforting velvet of his pale petal lips. “Then the prince fell in love,” Kihyun’s eyebrows slightly twitch, “fell in love, as if enchanted, beguiled by the silent song of the moon and crystal laughter of the river, sworn to the feeling by the frail sways of the boughs of weeping willows, crucified to the caressing ground with the weight of sweetened water that settles in his stomach and spreads phantom lightness all over his body.” Kihyun exhales and closes his eyes. He only hears Hyungwon quietly move to the strokes of water on his bare skin. 

“Kihyun,” he calls with a voice as pure as newly bloomed daffodils. Kihyun opens his eyes, sits up and crawls to the very edge of the shore, doesn’t look away from the glimmering obsidians, so dark it was as if they were the water, they were the sacred pool, they were the rainy sky and the everlasting tranquil underneath. Underneath the ripples. “Kiss me.”

Invisible thorns wrap around Kihyun’s neck, squeeze him the longer he stares into the big tear-brimmed eyes, suck the sweetened liquid he drank to quench the deadly thirst before. “I can’t,” his voice trembles, and a delicate wrinkle appears between Hyungwon’s eyebrows. A small sparkle dulls in the endless bottom of his eyes. “My dear Hyungwon, I can’t.”

“Kiss me, Kihyun.” A note of demand flashes in Hyungwon’s voice, his marble lips harden, and yet another sparkle dies out when Kihyun moves away.

“No,” he crawls back towards the looming black woods. His hands grow cold, but not from the damp grass; he freezes to his fingertips when the curve of Hyungwon’s lips turns downwards. “I can’t, my beloved, I am so sorry,” he mumbles. “I am so sorry,” comes out airy and weak, almost silent in the sudden wake of the waters.

“Kiss me.” Hyungwon’s brittle hand digs into the ruffled ground, his lily face glistens with falling drops, and the obsidians of his eyes turn hard as stone. A storm in the black ocean ignites in his irises. “Kiss me, Kihyun,” he seems to repeat but his lips barely move. Ripples rise as little waves and break against the freezing ground, break with a groaning sound.

“I can’t,” Kihyun hiccups and barely scrambles to his feet. He lets the crooked fingers of the dreadful forest engulf him before he can hear a guttural moan through the piercing ring in his ears. 

Through the pitch black haze he tumbles along the swampy woods the next night. As if lead by the angelic song of the moon, he tears his feet and rips his hair just to feel the cool of water on his scabbed skin, just to drink from the crystalline chalice and mutter mindless confessions into the gentlest petals of lips he so wishes to touch. 

His lungs are poison, covered in tar and resin and trapping every insignificant breath inside. But as if following the choir of nocturnal angels, he blinks away the awkward tears and lets the prickling wooden claws crumble in his palms. A crow’s monotone warning means nothing to him, cackle of the trees is the ring of wedding bells, and the babbling ground underneath is his loyal companion, forever guarding his every footstep. 

He could never lose his way in this deadly forest if guided by the divine melody of the moonlit river in the distance.

The exhale that comes out of his mouth when he finally falls on the soft dampen grass is bordering on a sob of relief. Watery cool heals and soothes his shattered knees; sapphire shore absorbs the venomous mud from his hands. There is dirt under his nails and a taste of sulphur in his mouth, but in his head – a call of celestial bodies above, and it brings him peace. He crawls to the rippling stream.

His ruffled reflection is weary and grey, and with every new night, his cheeks seem to sink in more and more, clinging to the round bone. And yet it’s not fatigue that distorts his face. For a brief silent moment, his bleak eyes turn into shimmering obsidians, and his thin lips curl into a sated smile akin to that of a serpent from his folk’s nursery stories.

The water contorts around the porcelain face that flies out from under the surface, scaring Kihyun to the core of his thorns-covered heart. “You came again,” Hyungwon murmurs, words freezing in the floral air like crystals of ice. He is inches away from Kihyun’s face, pale and glowing and so, so enchantingly beautiful. 

“Must I reassure you with the same words of comfort every night, my beloved?” He whispers back, voice falling to the praying grass under his knees. The smile that lingers on Hyungwon’s lips rises ever so slightly over the pointed pearls of his teeth. Little drops of water shimmer in the rosy lines of his full bottom lip, and they are unbelievably soft and sweet to the touch in Kihyun’s mind. 

“Please, drink, my little prince,” his pale hands slither under the surface, distorted by the gentle ripples of the stream. “Drink and feel better.”

Serpentine fingers sneak along the wet ground, slow and ghostly, but before they can cover Kihyun’s hands, he jerks away. He doesn’t say a word – shouldn’t, but there are thousand letters of apology dancing on the tip of his tongue when a tender sparkle in the beautiful black eyes dims just a tiny, tiny bit. 

Kihyun silently folds his palms and gathers a gulp of water, brings it to his mouth. Familiar comfort and relief swim along his body, cure his throat and bloom like flowers in his starved stomach. The dimmed sparkle returns to Hyungwon’s eyes, and the water swishes behind him, sending ripples to the shore.

“Let me clean the blood off your cheek,” he says and raises a glowing marble hand to Kihyun’s face. Through foreshadowing shivers, he lets cool fingers touch his skin. Delicate features of the creature below him paint with care as he slides his thumb over a cut, cold and wet and healing right to the very bone. 

The pleasant sensation leaves him longing for more. Hyungwon brings his hand to his own face, a dark scarlet smudge tainting his porcelain skin. He touches the tip of his thumb with his lips, gentle petals kissing over it once, lingering, tasting, and his eyes never leaving Kihyun’s. And Kihyun, he feels his heart explode and shatter to million glass pieces, feels them stab the inside of his chest, and his hands helplessly sting with the desire to… with the desire to…

He falls to lie on his back, head turned towards the river. Hyungwon isn’t startled by the change; he raises a corner of his lip in a mellow smile and settles on his folded arms, looks at Kihyun, looks at him fondly, like a guardian angel would. 

“Tell me another story,” he asks, “tell me what happens to the wandering prince?”

Kihyun smiles. “Isn’t it time you tell me a story, Hyungwon?” So low on the ground, he only hears the waves swaying behind the creature, hears something flowing in the river and separating the waters like a blade. To him, the sound is as calming as tinkles of a child’s laughter. 

“But I have no stories to tell, my dear prince,” Hyungwon’s amused smile reaches his tender cheeks, and he presses his lips together.

“But there must be something about this little stream that made you stay,” Kihyun insists.

Hyungwon breathes out a silent chuckle, sound as tender the breeze worrying newly bloomed leaves. “It is a lonely water, my beloved. For years, my only company had been the Moon that sang for me every night. She sang of solitude, of the loathsome sun, of all those who attempted to reach her and never could. Not a single bird could ever fly to her, for the sun burned their wings before the morning could even begin. Poor little birds, they fell into the marshes for their rightful death, and no one could ever save them. The solitude made the waters gruesome. They clouded with anger and anguish, bubbled thickly with blood, ate everything that fell into them, ate until they gurgled with the remains. And tears of the wailing sailors they sent away, thinking their pleas for mercy as despicable. Oh, so many manly tears filled the waters to the brim, and yet the rage was stronger. And the waters bathed in their solitude. Until one day, a broken wanderer stumbled out of their traps, and was forever salvaged by the Moon.”

Hyungwon’s eyes are cast to the side, reminiscent look on his delicate face. The river mindlessly swishes behind him, calming Kihyun’s astonished breaths. When Hyungwon looks up at him again, his smile curves tenderly at him. “The waters were not alone anymore.”

Kihyun closes his eyes, gave in to the pleasant numbness that crowned his head as he lays on the dampen ground. He lays still, not a move such that would not be noticed by the nocturnal companion above. The water soaks his ragged shirt; he could shed his skin to let the river take it. 

But something shifts in his throat, shatters, making it hard for him to swallow. He sits up, Hyungwon’s eyes watching his every move. “What happened to the wailing sailors then?” It is curiosity that pushes him closer to the river, it is thirst for answers and hunger for knowledge. And all he desires to know is the angel floating over the waters. 

The angel that looks at him with a hint of melancholy in his curved brows, the angel whose face is covered not in drops from the stream, but in tears. The angel that speaks so quietly to him and yet with frozen longing of a mourning elder. “Kiss me.”

Frozen, because every word is like a stab of ice on Kihyun’s skin. 

“Kiss me, Kihyun.”

There is a plea in his voice, there is a demand, and yet it is so achingly frigorific it squeezes Kihyun around his neck. 

“No, Hyungwon, please,” he begs, palms stuck to the trembling grass. “Please, don’t make me,” he wheezes and feels his heart break like a shattered cup. 

“Kiss me,” Hyungwon demands, “Kiss me, Kihyun.” He rises on his elbows, bare porcelain shoulders rise above the water ever so slightly, frail bones protruding through the flowing silk of raven hair.

And for some goddamn reason, Kihyun bends his arms to get closer to the face of a weeping angel. “It’s all I ever want to do, but I can’t,” he breathes out. A tear slips down his cheek. “The sun rises soon, I have to leave, my beloved.”

Dim obsidians distort under the frustrated frown, but even when no tenderness painted his features, Hyungwon was beautiful. “Forget the sun and kiss me,” he reaches forward, so dangerously close and so unfamiliarly cold. “Kiss me, kiss me now.” His tone is an order of a soldier, ruffling the river and worrying the willows, and yet still divine, still singing for the descending moon. 

Kihyun sheds idle tears, frozen with fear. He yearns, and he yearns, and he sees the thirst in Hyungwon’s eyes, the desire to kiss away the salty drops that fall on his lips, but it’s almost like the deadly trees behind him call him back home. 

“Please, don’t make me,” he quietly sobs. Hyungwon’s lips are pressed together, concealing something behind them, but even blurry with tears and panic, they are just as soft and sweet in Kihyun’s mind. “I don’t want to die.” His voice breaks, and there are no more breaths left in his lungs.

Something burns at the bottom of Hyungwon’s eyes. “Just kiss me!” His mouth opens with a shout, sharp edges of the teeth scrape his bottom lip, and black crooked lines slither under his skin.

His eyes, his face, his arms, his perfect marble skin ripples with ink, and with another moan of ‘kiss me!’, black hissing leeches burst forward from behind his back. Kihyun jolts back, scurries on his hands and knees towards the crooked barks, and fat squirming creatures fall on the grass, writhing in search of Kihyun. 

A long glistening leech crawls over Hyungwon’s shoulder into his hair. With a scrape of his bony hand on the darkening ground, the creatures stop writhing and slither towards Kihyun.

He barely clambers on his feet and rushes head-first into the cave of decaying branches.

And yet when the Moon rises again a few nights later, Kihyun curses the deadly forest for holding him back. He runs with a hoarse groan, the sound rough on his parched throat. He cracks the tangling boughs, scrapes his palms, and doesn’t care about the gulping ground for taking his shoe. His heart, his mere thrashing heart, drums against his ribs, drinks his veins dry and spills through the pulse on his neck. 

All there is to the forest is a brooding silence, all there is to Kihyun is his harsh stuttering breaths, and the everlasting satellite above is nothing but a stone instrument of melancholic melodies. The angelic enchanting voice is too quiet to beat the loud thirst washing over his tongue. It spreads from the back of his head, and it groans for numbing comfort. The comfort of the creature’s stream.

He tumbles out of the woods with a trembling body, blood and sweat and mud splotching his smouldering skin. He crawls to the crystalline river, its rippling ever so calm, and with a hitched sob bends to deepen his face and hands into the water. He drinks hungrily, water bittersweet and cold on his tongue.

The thirst, it’s genuine, but the insistent phantom calling at the back of his head is not as easily quenched. Icy prickles on his forehead are supposed to sober him up, and yet he waits for the crystal tinkles of the water to resume again, like it did all those nights before. The gentle song of the angel that glows brighter than the Moon. 

He smiles when tentative ripples are sent his way, and he looks up just to be blinded by the beautiful creature of the stream. 

“You came,” comes Hyungwon’s whisper again, tentative and fragile, and yet his face is so divine it keeps Kihyun on his knees.

“I always do,” he says, and dull drops of water slide down his cheeks and disappear in the bowing grass. His fingers ache to reach out. “My beloved,” his murmur dissipates in the air like ashes. 

Hyungwon swims towards the shore, lays his elbows on the ground, rises to look Kihyun in the eyes and yet not enough to be on the same level. And Kihyun can’t help but curve his spine and crouch before the ever so shining obsidians. 

“When will you ever come to stay?” Hyungwon’s voice is no more than a desperate exhale, airy like a falling petal. 

Kihyun weakly shakes his head, his eyes start stinging. “I’d give up the eternity to stay but I can’t, my beloved, I can’t.” He lowers his head, anguish eating him up from the inside. A cold palm caresses his cheek, and he looks up to recognise the same torturous longing on the innocent angel’s face. 

“Please, my love,” Hyungwon’s hands gently reach down to lie over Kihyun’s, but he jerks away from the touch, instinctively. “Kiss me,” he whispers, and the reckless tears finally spill. 

“No,” Kihyun swallows a sob, “no, Hyungwon, don’t make me, I beg you.”

Resigned sadness bleaks in the creature’s eyes. “Why, my love?” He draws a cold delicate finger over the back of Kihyun’s hand. “Why?” He breathes out.

“Please, Hyungwon,” something inside of Kihyun cracks, and he releases a hitched cry of anger. “Stop, please, stop it!” He cries and cries, helpless and rageful and desperate for some kind of release. Release he doesn’t know what from.

But Hyungwon brings his frail hands to Kihyun’s again, and he has no strength to swat them away. The pleasant cool almost paralyses him, and all he sees is a tender smile curling in the corners of the pale petal lips. 

“Let me tell you a story.” Hyungwon softly commences. Somehow, even through the never-ending sniffing, Kihyun feels the insistent scent of bitter flower floating in the air. “Every night you come here, my dear wanderer, and every night there’s more wounds on your precious cheeks and loving hands, your feet can barely hold the weight of your mortal body, your eyes look at me and yet you seem so far away, so far away from me, so far away from everything. Aren’t you tired of all this pain, beloved, aren’t you aching for the relief you’ve been longing for your entire life? Kihyun, my dear Kihyun, I can take it all away from you. Let me take it away from you.” He gets closer and closer, he features seem sweeter and… loving. He looks at Kihyun like a wealthy lord would look at his dumb little pet. “All your pain, all your sorrow, all your hate, let me take it away from you. My beloved, I’ve been yearning for your kiss ever since the day you strayed into the marshlands. Every day, when the sun is up, I mourn your absence under the weight of bog and mire, and I long for your touch, for a single word falling from your lips. My little prince, the water on my cheeks is not from the river but from my own tears. Let me kiss you, my beloved, just once. Let me kiss you.” His sugary breath caresses Kihyun’s lips.

But he looks down, and suddenly something crumbles within him, decays, spreads inside his body like venomous fog. It doesn’t shatter like grass or cracks like dry old branches, it doesn’t hurt or stings like needles. It just evaporates, blows away like ashes of a burned log. Hope, maybe. Will. Strength. All he is, is a wilted flower bowing for a sip of life. 

He’s never noticed how murky the waters of the stream are when he is not looking at the creature that filled it.

“Kiss me, my beloved,” Hyungwon whispers. Kihyun looks up and knows no thought but submission to the other’s desire. 

With one last shedded tear, he crosses the miserable inch between their mouths. And although he is still trembling, the freezing cold on his lips soothes him. Perhaps it is a relief that washes over him when Hyungwon’s marble petal lips touch his ever so gently. 

The angel’s song, it echoes so loudly along the river, dances in the surrounding woods and clouds Kihyun’s mind. The angel’s song, the one that guides him every night through the deadly forest, the one that he longs to hear whenever the sun is high up above his head, the other he fell in love with from the very first note. The angel’s song, the song that resonates deep beneath the rippling waters. 

Hyungwon’s lips, Hyungwon’s cold dampen lips, gift him an ephemeral touch of heaven, and all Kihyun wants is to never stop the feeling, bathe in it, dive into it… drown in it. The kiss is as gentle as a child’s embrace, and yet it evokes the deepest desires from within him, flows along his veins and burns his skin, burns so much that the only way to relieve it is to let the waters caress him. 

Familiar swishing behind the creature resumes, little waves wash over the grassy shore, and Hyungwon presses his mouth tighter, moves, inhales and exhales like a hungry animal. Kihyun feels no fear when something sharp prickles his bottom lip, but slightly jerks away at the sensation. A drop of red paints Hyungwon’s lips; the tongue that licks it off is coloured black. Enchanting obsidians of his eyes glimmer with something Kihyun has never seen before; he finds it beautiful.

Before the corners of his lips can curl coldly, Hyungwon kisses him again, kisses strongly, like he has no intention to let go. His hands wrap around Kihyun’s, and he twists his own palms up, wraps his fingers around Hyungwon’s fragile wrists, holds on tight, holds on strong so the thin slick flesh doesn’t slip back into the waters without him. 

He wants it, he wants the kiss to last forever, he strives for it, O Lord, he lusts for it. The angel’s song, so loud and so divine, so calming and yet so cruel, for he breathes hard and can’t get enough. The cold grip around his wrists grows firmer. 

The waters, they ruffle and they rise, and through blurry hooded eyes Kihyun sees shimmering scales floating above and breaking the ripples, the tail of the creature that is so long and sharp and beautiful, oh it’s beautiful. The stench of seaweed, the clumps of moss in his throat, the gurgle under his knees, all of it is floral and crystalline to him. The waters call for him with the angel’s song.

With a slight tug, his hands dip into the river, and he bends and bows further, follows every retreating move Hyungwon makes. And Kihyun yearns for it, trembles with desire the kiss arouses, cries in tune to the celestial choir in the head. For a brief second, only for a miserable second, Hyungwon detaches from his mouth, his porcelain lips stained scarlet, and whispers something Kihyun can’t comprehend through the hysterical singing in his ears. 

Hyungwon whispers, and Kihyun knows it’s something akin to love, although his eyes ignite with foul glee. Victorious glee. And Kihyun only wishes to kiss the ever so delicate curve of his lips for the rest of his life. 

When the angel kisses him again, the celestial song flows into the melodious swishing of the waters below. Damp cool envelopes Kihyun’s hands, his elbows, stains his shirt, and he bows as if to pray around the blood-tainted lips, pray with confessions he’s yearned to scream. Their reflections muddle into one, distorted by simmer of bubbles that won’t carry the glimmer of the moonlight evermore. He kisses, kisses until it’s all he ever knows. Kisses with blindfold belief that it will always be the tender petal lips he will be kissing like he’s dreamed of doing for so long. 

He kisses around the slithering tongue, and his lips meet the ever so welcoming ripples, and then follows his beloved into the pool of writhing leeches. 

It’s cold beneath the surface.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!! hmu on twt @chaeleggiewon


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